CBS News: The SCOOTER store power wheelchair company raided in federal probe

As part of ongoing coverage of healthcare fraud, CBS News delves into the case of The SCOOTER Store, a power wheelchair company that overbilled Medicare by $108 million.

FROM CBS NEWS:

The issue is that once a doctor has written a prescription, Medicare rarely verifies whether the chairs are actually necessary. The problem was crystallized when the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services released this report, finding that industry-wide, 80 percent of Medicare payments for power chairs are made in error, most going to people who don’t need them, or who lack proof they need them.

From 2009 to 2012, government auditors found The SCOOTER Store overbilled Medicare by as much as $108 million.

Three former SCOOTER Store employees told CBS News the company ranked doctors based on whether they’d prescribe chairs, and that it had a program specifically to get chairs for people that physicians had already deemed ineligible. Setzer, a former-employee, says incessant phone calls and visits wore doctors down.